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He gathered the hem of my gown and lifted it to my waist, pushed his bottoms down in one efficient motion. Kicking my legs apart, he spread me open with his fingers, his palm petting the place I was dying for him to touch.
My world turned into pure sensation. The velvety heat of his sex pressed between my cheeks. The crips feel of the hair between his legs. The unyielding muscles of his abdomen pressed into my lower back. Pleasure tugged and tugged at me.
On pure instinct my hips rolled, my back arched, seeking him, wanting…needing. So much need. Thrusting powerfully, he buried himself inside of me to the root. My scream of approval reverberated off the ancient hand painted walls of the hotel.
Deep and slow, he pumped into me. So deep I couldn’t tell where he ended and I began. My eyes cracked open to discover the woman across the canal was still watching us. Shame blazed a fire across my cheekbones, but there was nothing to be done for it. I was lost to everything other than him, his body, the scent of sex that drifted languidly around us, the deep, raspy voice that murmured deliciously filthy things in my ear.
For reasons I couldn’t even begin to understand this man ignited something in me that I never knew existed. In his arms I wasn’t proper, or quiet, or measured, or apprehensive. I was a wanton thrill-seeker, a risk-taker. I was adventurous and carefree. And more in love than I ever thought possible.
“This is everything,” I heard him murmur right before he came, after he had me screaming my release from the rooftops.
Hours later, after we showered and attempted to put clothes on, I was watching him button his shirt, watching him conceal muscles honed by years of intense swimming, when I asked, “Why is this so important to you?” The question was meant to be lighthearted, casual. His large eyes, filled with profound emotion, left me to focus on the buttons he was fiddling with.
“I’m marrying the woman I love,” he replied in a voice serious and true. “I don’t intend to do this ever again. I want everything to be perfect.”
That sobered me instantly. The naked sentiment hit me in the chest, my throat closing up at his sincerity, his courage, his ability to wear his feelings for me on his sleeve… something I still had a very hard time doing.
In a shocking turn of events, the Roman Catholic Church did not bend to his will like the rest of us. He huffed and puffed all week at not getting his way, while I did my best not to laugh and crow I told you so. I was marrying a hopeless romantic after all––I had to remind myself to handle his feelings with care.
Mrs. Arnaud, Mr. Bentifourt, and Charlotte flew in on the private jet three days before the wedding. Ben took a separate flight for reasons no one had a bloody clue about. Held in an historic villa overlooking the canals, the intimate civil ceremony was officiated by the Mayor of Venice.
I grabbed a hand towel and wiped my damp palms on it.
“Nervous?” Marianne asked while she button the thousands of tiny, fabric covered buttons that trailed from the top on my spine to the hem of my train. My eyes met hers in the etched Venetian full length mirror we stood before.
“We come from such different worlds…can this last a lifetime?”
In the subsequent heavy pause, her vibrant eyes skipped from me, to the buttons of my dress. “You are looking at it from the wrong angle.”
“Meaning?”
“In which ways are you alike?”
The proverbial bull’s eye. I was so wrapped up in listing all the ways we were different that I ignored the way in which we were alike. The most important way, the most fundamental way.
“Our souls…are souls are alike.” She smiled back knowingly. Tears pooled in the corners of my eyes. “I love you, Marianne.”
“I love you too, cherié.”
The room, already breathtakingly appointed with authentic antiques, was decorated sparingly with large vases of white lilies. I stepped into the room wearing an ivory, Chantilly lace gown by Valentino that had been hand delivered from Rome. God only knows what he did to swing that because it fit me perfectly.
Charlotte served as my maid of honor and my personal attendant––I couldn’t move an inch without her fussing with the train of my dress. She wore a grin as bright as the sun, and a lavender Chloe dress I had no idea where she’d gotten until I heard her thank Sebastian. Ben served as best man, looking uncharacteristically surly throughout the entire ceremony––though that did nothing to diminish how handsome he was in his tailored blue suit––handmade no doubt, no way was he getting that body into anything off the rack.
